Association of Pacific Coast Geographers Annual Meeting: September 24–27, 2014 Tucson, Arizona: Abstracts for Oral Presentations and Posters

Oral Presentation Abstracts

Stuart Aitken, saitken@mail.sdsu.edu, San Diego State University. Disconnections and Mobilities Amongst the “Erased” Youth of Slovenia. This paper is about the struggles of Izbrisani (“Erased”) youth in Slovenia from 1992 to the present day. It looks at the familial stresses (including the break-up of families and families locked in place) caused by loss of permanent resident status and failure to gain citizenship status after Slovenia achieved independence. In seemingly arbitrary institutional processes, some family members gained citizenship status while others did not. Theoretical insights are drawn from Agamben’s ideas about bare life and Rancière’s politicization of aesthetics; empirical examples are drawn from the spatial stories of Izbrisani youth.

Michelle K. Alger, malger@uoregon.edu, University of Oregon. Independence, Security, and Natural Gas Geopolitics between the European Union and Russia. This paper examines the geopolitics of energy security between the European Union (EU) and Russia through the lens of natural gas. It is well-documented that Russia uses its monopoly on energy infrastructure to influence the political and economic situation of those Western neighbors who heavily rely on its natural gas exports. Such influence is seen as a threat to European state sovereignty and regional security, and in 2009 the EU passed “The Third Energy Package” to address these concerns. Drawing on two case studies, the building of a floating liquefied natural gas terminal named “Independence” on Lithuania’s Baltic Sea coast and the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, this paper argues that the two main objectives of the energy package—a secure, reliable supply and reduced Russian influence—are in conflict with one another. This paper concludes that ensuring a secure supply of natural gas to Europe is coming at the price of Ukrainian territory and sovereignty, and challenges notions of state and regional security that neglect human and environmental security.

Greg Barron-Gafford, gregbg@email.arizona.edu, The University of Arizona; Rebecca Minor, rlminor@email.arizona.edu, The University of Arizona; Maggie Heard, maggieheard@gmail.com, The University of Arizona; Jordan Barrows, jordanbarrows@email.arizona.edu, The University of Arizona; and Nathan Allen, nate_allen@terraswell.com, TerraSwell, Tucson, Arizona. Using Water Smart Design [End Page 99] and an Ecosystem Services Approach to Fight Solar Heat Islanding and Enhance Renewable Energy Production. Renewable-energy power production through photovoltaic modules (PV) is important both from an economic perspective and as a means for mitigating climatic change. However, PV-based energy production is, itself, sensitive to climate projections, as any increase in temperature yields a reduction in panel efficiency. Ultimately, the predicted 4°C increase in temperature would reduce energy production 2.5 percent. Identifying means of increasing PV efficiencies is key for state and regional development. Here, we take a novel ecosystems approach and create a hybrid of “green” and “grey” infrastructure to address this issue. Our approach is grounded in a understanding of patterns of energy fluxes and a desire to implement water smart design. Further, we aim to augment the total ecosystem services of these built environments, whether rural or urban, to extend beyond renewable energy sites to ones that can also serve as migratory corridors (as opposed to areas more void of biology) or point of crop production. In merging the concepts from ecology, physics, hydrology, and atmospheric science, we aim to directly impacts issues related to biogeography, economics, air quality, water availability, and ecosystem resilience.

Curt Blondell, cblon22@csu.fullerton.edu, California State University, Fullerton. Evaluation of NCEP-NCAR Reanalysis Variables in Statistical Downscaling of Daily Precipitation in Southern California. This paper examines large-scale regional atmospheric controls on orographic precipitation enhancement throughout southern California, using a forty-year dataset of station precipitation and gridded atmospheric variables obtained from the National Center for Environmental Prediction-National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP-NCAR) reanalysis product. The goal is to determine atmospheric predictors of daily precipitation in southern California, and to evaluate whether atmospheric variables at a coarse spatial resolution can be statistically downscaled to provide an understanding of surface climate variability in a region of complex terrain. This...